e turned and gripped Dickie hard by the shoulder.

"For we'll make a thorough-paced sportsman of you yet, Sir Richard," he
said, "God bless you--danged if we don't."

Which assertion Mr. Chifney repeated at frequent intervals over his
grog that evening, as he sat, not in the smart dining-room hung round
with portraits of Vinedresser and Sahara and other equine notabilities,
but in the snug, little, back parlour looking out on to the yard. Mrs.
Chifney was a gentle, pious woman, with whom her husband's profession
went somewhat against the grain. She would have preferred a nice
grocery, or other respectable, uneventful business in a country town,
and dissipation in the form of prayer rather than of race-meetings. But
as a slender, slightly self-righteous, young maiden she had fallen very
honestly and completely in love with Tom Chifney. So there was nothing
for it but to marry him and regard the horses as her appointed cross.
She nursed the boys when they were sick or injured, intervened fairly
successfully between their poor, little backs and her husband's
all-too-ready ash stick; and assisted Julius March in promoting their
spiritual welfare, even while deploring that the latter put his faith
in forms and ceremonies rather than in saving grace. Upon the trainer
himself she exercised a gently repressive influence.

"We won't swear, Mr. Chifney," she remarked mildly now.

"Swear! It's enough to make the whole bench of bishops swear to see
that lad."

"I did see him," Mrs. Chifney observed.

"Yes, out of window. But you didn't carry him round, and hear him
talk--knowledgeable talk as you could ask from one of his age. And
watch his face--as like as two peas to his father's."

"But her ladyship's eyes," put in Mrs. Chifney.

"I don't know whose eyes they are, but I know he can use 'em. It was as
pretty as a picture to see how he took it all."

Chifney tossed off the remainder of his tumbler of brandy and water at
a gulp.

"Swear," he repeated, "I could find it in my heart to swear like hell.
But I can find it in my heart to do more than that. I can forgive her
ladyship. By all that's----"

"Thomas, forgiveness and oaths don't go suitably together."

"Well, but I can though, and I tell you, I do," he said solemnly. "I
forgive her.--Shoot the Clown! by G--! I beg your pardon, Maria;--but
upon my soul, once or twice, when I had him in my arms to-day, I felt I
could have understood it if she'd had every horse shot